//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Old Faces....Wait what hell are you?! Pt. 2 // Story: Black Fury, Red Logic // by Inazuma //------------------------------// There is a saying that goes "There is no such thing as a Pure Good person even amongst paradise". You start out to try to do the right thing but you get swallowed up and disappear, whether by yourself or by others. I am one such person. Earlier A dark void was all that greeted Lori, she felt as though that giant slug from Starship Troopers was drawing her brain out through her head. Lori tried to figure out could have caused such agony, but her faculties was still on the fritz, only small flashes of memory were available to her. Breathing and lying down were about all she could manage as her body refused to move and obey her commands, her limbs unresponsive, and seeming as if they were made of tungsten; time to try a word. Something short and pertinent. Help, she decided, would be the word to go for. She took a trembling breath and opened her mouth.         "Mummlp." said Lori's treacherous lips. No good. What is going on? Focusing all her strength at the front of her head, Lori cracked open one eye. And closed it almost immediately. So much pain and fuzziness in her head. 'Looks like I need to just wait a few more minutes until this blows over. Shouldn't take very long, just five minutes, ten tops. So...damn...tired...Fuu-' *Five hours later* Lori's eyes shot open suddenly. She sat up opened her mouth and quickly ran her tongue over her teeth and the roof of her mouth, then tried mouthing a word then a sentence. 'Nothing. Good. So it hadn't been...that.' That was a load off her mind. That was absolutely the last thing she needed.         "Ah. I see you are awake ma'am." Lori turned to look at whoever had spoken to her. It was a male "pony"? dressed casually and wearing a white lab-coat with clip-on ID that said he was a doctor.   "I'm Dr. Scalpel and I'll be your physician today." Lori stared at him for what must have been a while because he asked if anything was wrong.         "No nothing's wrong. It's just how long was I out?" Lori asked.         "About two weeks." She closed her eyes and struggled to take it in. In the end Lori decided to express her feelings by doing what anyone would do in her situation. She swore. Loudly and a lot.         "That's it. Let it all out." The doctor said calmly. After her little tirade she took a few deep breaths and calmed down instantly. Who says swearing doesn't solve anything?         "If you are done I'd like to examine you, please." 'Tch, I bet you would.' Lori thought to herself but nodded in assent. The examination was pretty much what you would expect by going to the Doctor's and getting a checkup. When he finished his examination he wrote down a few things, muttered a few things and blah, blah, blah.         "Doctor, are you going to tell me what happened to me or what?" Lori demanded.         "Hmm? Oh right. Of course. It's sort of a mystery though." The doctor commented.         "Oh? Why's that?" she asked.         "Well, you have displayed all the symptoms of Advanced Magical Exhaustion. It's a disease that is subject to magical creatures, Unicorns are especially subjective to this disease. It's symptoms include, headache, nausea, high fever-" cut him off, "Skip the crap and get to the important parts."         "Right. Anyway, due to the severity of the disease that you've displayed you should have been out for longer than two weeks, on top of that you should still be sick. You're looking at least six months of recovery time until a patient would be released back into society. However, you beat the disease in one week and recovered perfectly in another, which has never been heard of. Not only that, you don't appear to be magical in any way. Well in any way known to ponies, buffalo or griffons and yet somehow you contracted this disease. Like I said it's a mystery." Lori nodded again in acknowledgement but otherwise kept silent.         "I should mention there were some other things but I think it's best your caregivers tell you what happened. By the way, you are free to leave whenever." Lori simply nodded again. The doctor got up and left through the room door and in came Little Strongheart the Buffalo girl Lori had met before her collapse.         "How are you feeling?" Little Strongheart softly asked.         "Alright I guess. The doctor said I was fine and released me." she answered casually. Now that Lori was no longer exhausted and hot she was able to get a good look at Little Strongheart. Not being familiar with the names or terms of Native American clothing Lori couldn't quite describe what she was wearing. But Lori did notice there were three additions  to Little Strongheart's outfit that weren't there before. The first was that she had a Tomahawk strapped to the right side of her waist along with a knife on her left side. She was also carrying a bow about (what Lori assumed to be) of average make and a quiver full of arrows. And as a girl I have no problem in thinking that Little Strongheart looked hot. For an anthropomorphic Buffalo. Little Strongheart put her bow and quiver against the wall next to Lori's bed and sat down in the chair the doctor previously occupied.         "So, Doctor Scalpel said that something happened while I was out. Know anything about that?" Lori asked. Little Strongheart frowned and pulled out a small notebook from a pouch from her left side next to her knife.         "Yes. While you were sick you tended to talk in your sleep. Sometimes normally and sometimes you would speak backwards." She answered, she sounded worried. Lori arched her brow at that and looked at her questioningly.         "I know it sounds strange but it's true. Quite a few doctors have witnessed it. Braeburn and myself included. We took the liberty of writing down the things you said and what we could decipher from your backwards talk, just in case what you said was important and or had any meaning to you." Little Strongheart handed Lori the notebook and gave her a look of assurance when she hesitated for a moment to open up the book to read it's contents. SHAZAM Gilgamesh. DISPLACED. Spawn. Asura. Slenderman. Tarakudo. Sunset Shimmer. MULTIVERSE. Anti-Life. Gravity Shifter. No Heart. Nemesis. Superman. YOJIMBO Void. Eternity. Fate. "Shazam" "Yojimbo" "Multiverse" and "Displaced" were written in all capitals and underlined. Perhaps to indicate importance and or perhaps to indicate that Lori said these words the most often. In any case, the word "Displaced" didn't mean a thing to her. "Shazam" was the magic word that allowed Billy Batson, Theo Adam and Teth-Adam to transform and become the heroes Captain Marvel and Black Adam respectively. But Lori didn't see how that be of any importance to her. "Yojimbo" if she remembered correctly is the Japanese word for bodyguard but how  did that apply to her? Next. "Multiverse"? No comment. What else? "Sunset Shimmer" now that sounded familiar but Lori couldn't place it. Hmmm. Wait, wasn't "Sunset Shimmer" the name of the soap she bought at the 99cent store last week? Though by now it'd be  three weeks she supposed. So her subconscious is telling her that she was smelly? Note to self: Kill subconscious. "Slenderman". What the fuck is a Slenderman? Sounds like the name of a Noodle-Shop mascot or porn star. The rest of them Lori didn't deign to think about as they all had the same question for an answer.         "I admit that I do recognize some of these words but I don't know how they would apply to me." she said finally.         "I see. Well don't worry about it too much then. The important thing is that you are better. Excuse me for a moment, I'll be right back." Little Strongheart replied as she got up from her chair and left. As Lori sat there alone, she thought she heard a voice. No. Not a voice, voices. "Great, just great now I'm going insane-er." She put her hands to her ears in a futile effort to block out the noise. Luckily Lori didn't have to deal to with it for very long when the door to her room opened and Little Strongheart came in again carrying a tray of Food! As soon as she placed the tray on Lori's legs Lori began to eat with all the elegant grace of a Piranha. It wasn't until Little Strongheart laughed at Lori's display that Lori remembered what century she was born in and corrected herself. While in the middle of gnawing on a drumstick that Lori decided to ask the question that had been bugging her for awhile.         "So what's with the weapons?" Little Strongheart's smile turned to a frown. "A few days ago Appleloosa began experiencing raids and threats from a gang called the Cattle Rustlers led by King Longhorn. They've been stealing and causing some property damage. We were willing to let it go for the most part since the damages and thefts were small and since all of the crops were doing very well and profits have been high from both them and other businesses, affording to fix the damages was no problem. But recently they've begun threatening to do worse. The weapons are mostly for a bluff as I'd rather not resort to violence outside of fair hand to hand combat. But I will not hesitate to use them if it means protecting my friends and their home!" I could see the fires of passion and determination in Little Strongheart's eyes, it was...inspiring.         "Count me in." Lori said.         "Pardon?"         "I want to help. In any way I can."  she added, setting aside her tray of food. "Oh no, you don't have to do that, besides you're still recovering." Little Strongheart protested.         "I know I don't have to but I want to and I'm going to anyway, whether you like it or not. You and your friends have taken me in and treated me while I was sick without thought or hesitation or question about who I am, what I am, where I came from or whatever. I have no money for which to pay you back with but I can certainly try to help you in your efforts to defend your friends." A day after that conversation Little Strongheart began teaching Lori things. Archery, hunting, gathering, some herbalism, how to identify various plants and animals and other sorts of survival skills. It wasn't easy by no means but since she was stuck wherever she was with no way to get back home and since her old injury was no longer able to hinder her, she may as well learn some things. As the saying goes "There is no future for the bystander" and with that in mind Lori took to Little Strongheart's teachings with great gusto. The downside? Lately, Lori had been getting quite a few headaches and more than a couple of migraines. Then there's the voices, but she ignored them. She was not about to let these things get in her way. **** After Lori had become a expert (at least expert enough that she didn't embarrass herself) in the aforementioned skills, Little Strongheart surprised Lori one day by saying that she will start teaching Lori her tribe's martial art called Okichitaw*. Lori nearly screamed in both surprise and delight when she heard that. Okichitaw was a martial art from her world (by now Lori had come to the conclusion that she was in/on another world) that she had been positively dying to learn, Lori had studied it a little among other martial arts in hopes of one day learning and becoming a practitioner in as many as I possibly could but my injury put a halt to that dream. But here, now, I have a second chance to pursue that dream. The same day Little Strongheart gave me that bit of news was the same day my lessons began and while she would be my chief instructor, her father Chief Thunderhooves would also help me with my lessons whenever he had the time. In addition to the lessons in fighting Little Strongheart taught me the history and culture of her people, when I asked her 'why now and not earlier' when she taught me those other things she told me it slipped her mind. Go figure. One thing I had noticed but not paid much attention to was that the voices in my head grew slightly louder and clearer whenever Little Strongheart was teaching me, especially during Okichitaw lessons. At first I had paid it no mind but when I began learning and practicing the martial art of Little Strongheart's at an incredibly fast rate, faster than I should be learning (apparently faster than anybody in the whole tribe) I began to worry. I told this to Little Strongheart, she told me not to worry about it for now, and and if it made me feel better she would talk to her father and the tribe's Shaman. With that matter settled I continued my training and did my best to ignore the voices. The days turned to weeks and then eventually two months. That the gang Little Strongheart mentioned while I was still recuperating had yet to make any true move. A few members popped up every now and then to cause trouble but it was nothing Braeburn or Little Strongheart couldn't handle. Still, even though the threats were minor, neither of us could shake the feeling that something BIG was going to happen. Eventually that gang arrived and started saying something about make the town theirs or some shit like that. Though it appeared that Braeburn had things well in hand since apparently despite his gentle appearance he was very good with a gun and he was backed up by Little Strongheart with her archery skills and a few other citizens of the town. However apparently the gang had taken a few hostages including one of Braeburn's relatives. Thanks to that King Longhorn the leader of the gang forced the others put down their weapons and back away. I on other hand was hiding in an alleyway waiting for my chance to help. Even though they had accepted my offer of help they didn't really have anything in mind I could do, so Little Strongheart suggested I hide somewhere and observe and maybe the chance to help would present itself. As I observed Little Strongheart and her friends back away the whispering I had been hearing during my time here had returned but I ignored it, I was too intent on looking for a chance to aid my friends. "It's a good thing the daughter of the chief of the Buffalo is here. She should fetch a wonderful price.” one of the goons said. Oh, Fuck no. I came out of my hiding place and marched straight into their field of vision and placed myself between the gang and the others. “Who the hell are you?!” King Longhorn demanded. The whispers in my head grew louder and louder and I could of sworn I heard a voice say Say It! “I’ve got one thing to say to you guys.” I growled. “Oh yeah? And what’s that?” the leader asked. "SHAZAM!" KRAKKKOOOOMMMM!!!! As soon as the word left my lips, a bolt of magical lightning descended from on high and struck me, transforming myself. Power flooded through my veins and most importantly, the voices finally became coherent enough for me to understand them as if they were another person speaking right next to me, eventually they became silent. Electricity crackled all over my body as a black shirt with a golden LIGHTNING bolt formed on my chest, complete with a black cape with gold trimmings and complete with a gold sash. I rose up into the air and glared at the gang. "So. Who's first?"